Quorum teams up with Carfolks to tame the wild social media frontier

Quorum DMS users unsure of what role social media should play at their dealerships are going to get a helping hand. The DMS developer announced March 21 its dealers could look to Carfolks.com to guide them.

As social media channels exert more influence over where consumers shop and buy their vehicles, Quorum wants to provide our dealerships with the ability to meet the needs of managing their online reputations,” Mark Allen, Quorum's V-P of sales, marketing and services, said in a release.

After examining the landscape, we found Carfolks.com has a unique blend of a dealer-centric model based on real ‘social evidence’ and objective information for consumers that presents an accurate picture of their experience.”

Allen told Canadian AutoWorld Quorum’s role would be to ship a secure supply of customer data – names of customers who bought a vehicle or had it serviced or repaired – from participating dealerships to Carfolks.com.

“We want to accurately represent how the dealership takes care of its customers, to minimize the affect of rogue reviews – anonymous reviews,” Mark Dubis, Carfolks’ founder, said. “We thought that doesn’t help consumers because they can’t get accurate information about how the dealership really performs.”

That’s where the dealership data comes in. Carfolks’ technology uses the data to see if the comments posted on the dealer’s page on the Carfolks site did come from a dealership customer.

No, the dealer can’t wipe out negative anonymous reviews, but the data helps dealers craft a response to reviews with a customer’s name on it. It does, however, refuse to accept them at its web site.

Carfolks invites customers to review their experience at the dealership and gives them 14 days to do it.

Customers submitting reviews to the Carfolks.com website must rate their experience at one to five stars. The dealer decides which rating deserves a response.

Using the data supplied by dealers, Carfolks decides if the review is legitimate. If it is, the review goes on to the dealership for a response.

All of this is done in a matter of seconds.

“Everything goes live immediately and then the ball is in the dealer’s court to contact the customer.”

He said that’s not the case elsewhere. Dealers are free to choose whatever reviews Carfolks steers to dealer websites, Facebook, Twitter or other dealer pages on social media sites. Though he encourages dealers to accept all criticism to give the page an air of authenticity, still they are the final arbiters.

As part of the dealer’s Carfolks page, the dealer’s sales staff and service advisors get a space for their profile and reviews. Appearing there is not optional.

This encourages the sales people and the service advisors to recognize they are responsible for the relationship,” he argued.

Dubis said that the service is also available to non-Quorum dealers.

For more information, Quorum subscribers can call the Quorum order desk, 888-770-0036(513). Others can call Mark Dubis, 212-712-6712, mark.dubis@carfolks.com or visit www.carfolks.com.